OK...and this is relevent how? The question is not whether CL has the right to kick someone off their site for spamming. It's whether they can corrupt the intent of the DMCA and trademark laws to stop a company from selling a tool that can be used by users of CL to distribute spam.
230 protections don't provide coverage for being idiots.
Sometimes, as with free speech, you have to put up with idiots because upholding the overall principle is more important. If you believe that you can't hold a third-party responsible for someone else's behavior, even if they have a more than tangential involvement with that someone, then you have to realize that this will mean that sometimes safe harbors will apply to things you don't like.
For example, if you agree that it's wrong to hold an ISP responsible for its users making copyrighted material available, then you also have to agree that it's wrong to hold Red Trumpet responsible for selling software that its users use to spam.
It's my guess that this is a case of where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. There's probably some lawyer at Craigslist who is concerned about winning this particular case, not thinking about what the long term ramifications are for the company or even for the country. What's important is for him to win his case and improve his personal record, right? The real WTF is that someone at a higher level hasn't realized what a mess this will cause and stepped in to stop the case from going forward.
Is it just me or are there too many examples of the legal department going off and doing things which the regular executives should know is obviously bad for the company as a whole? Is "How to Hypnotize your CEO" a standard class in law school?
The technology makes it easier to communicate, and those who benefited from the older restrictions get most afraid of what the new technologies allow.
This makes it sound like a purely capitalistic model. I think it's more psychological. If it were just about profit, the people who were in control of the old technology would be in the best position to see when their replacement was invented and to jump on the bandwagon. This would be the capitalistic model. But this doesn't happen because people simply like what they know in spite of whether something they don't know could make them more money.
I think the reverse is true. Unless she had some very specific terms of hire that excluded such things (and I doubt an equipment manager would) it's work for hire.
From a legal standpoint, I think you're probably right. The "everything you do is ours" clauses that they include in the employment contracts of people who are specifically hired to create artworks are probably more of a precaution than a legal requirement.
However, think about this from the perspective of a regular person on the street. Not the "moron in a hurry", but a reasonably intelligent person who doesn't happen to be as aware of legal copyright issues like readers of Techdirt. From a purely moral standpoint, don't you think that what happened to this young woman would strike many as unfair? BTW, I'm not saying that it was unfair, just that the pool of people in a potential jury certainly might and that's why this case is going forward.
I'm thinking along the same lines. Her lawyer said...
"She was paid to pick up dirty towels,"
This is only a guess, but I'd say that since her job description did not include anything about the creation of artwork and -- more importantly -- the standard "everything you do [create] is ours" clause wasn't in her employment contract, they believe they have a case.
If you work in an art department, sure, you're contract is probably going to include that kind of clause. But they probably didn't think that the employment contract of an "equipment room clerk" needed to include this kind of language.
The business of collecting the news carries a cost that needs to be paid for. A paywall is one method of meeting these costs. It's not great but we should recognise that news costs money.
The traditional method of collecting the news costs money. No one is arguing that point. The question is how it should be paid for. Yes, a paywall is a model for trying to recoup these costs. However, the point that Mike is making is that it's a model doomed to failure. While a paywall may allow you to make some money in the short term, given the availability of news from other sources, in the long term, you just end up shrinking your audience.
In short, if you build a paywall, it means that eventually you'll be the only person inside the wall.
Re: Re: Re: The ISP is partly to blame for the poor decision
My source is the court protocol itself where it clearly says what I said. Since it's not possible for an ISP to block certain works the implication is of course that the ISP is forced to shut down all access. So if you're talking about the implication then TechDirt and CNet are correct, if you're talking about the court's words and what it actually ordered then I am correct.
Assuming that the court protocol says what you say it says, then I would say that TechDirt and CNet are wrong. Or, in the very least, mischaracterizing the court ruling. Yes, ordering something that has the effect of shutting off service and hiding behind the "but we didn't tell you to shut off service" excuse is an underhanded tactic, but there's still an distinction between the two verdicts. One means the court is dangerously oppresive. The other means it's dangerously ignorant.
Re: The ISP is partly to blame for the poor decision
It's important to note that the court only ordered the ISP to block the works mentioned on the lists that the movie and record companies provided (100-200 copyrighted works).
Source? Based on the links provided by TD, it seems clear that the court told the ISP to explicitly stop servicing TPB.
"An executive with Black Internet told Swedish newspaper SvD that the court informed the company that it would either shut off The Pirate Bay or face penalties. The founders of The Pirate Bay were found guilty of copyright violations last April."
Except that the users are often hiding being the "230" service providers. So in the end, you have to whack the service provider to get the information.
You've just restated the argument that "due process is too damn slow". What's fair is to punish the people who are breaking the law, not to go after the people who are providing the people who are breaking the law the platform to do so just because it's convenient.
Besides, no one is "hiding" behind the safe harbor provisions. That's like saying I'm hiding behind the constitution if I want to excercise my right to free speech.
Mike, it's a sad commentary on the big media companies, but it seems to me that many of the news stories that you comment on could have a headline almost exactly like this.
- Companies wanting to sue a web site that is protected by safe harbor laws when they should be suing the people who uploaded the content must believe that due process is too slow.
- Lobbying groups that want French judges to only spend five minutes on a case.
- Lobbying groups that want a three strikes rule without a review process.
All of these are cases were companies or lobbying groups want to short-circuit due process because they can't be bothered to go after the people actually breaking the law. Sure, I can sympathize with the companies who have to go after all of the individuals, but this does not extend to breaking one of the fundamental precepts of any just legal system.
Re: Re: Re: It's not like they can't show stuff...
Y'know what? If you put your crap in public view, it should be public domain. Don't like it? Hide it. Your choice.
I couldn't agree more. You give up certain rights when you put your IP out in public. Common sense, right?
You'd think that Hollywood as a whole would have enough clout to push back on these silly restrictions. I mean, if they're paying all of these entertainment lawyers anyway to try and prevent lawsuits, why not let them just deal with the lawsuits that come up with the hopes that eventually enough case law would get established that the lawsuits would dry up on their own. Wait, I've just answered my own question. It's a cash cow for the lawyers. Silly me.
Based on my reading of the linked article, the author was saying that entertainment lawyers spend much of their time on these "clearance procedures" not just for situations where product placements were sold, but for most all situations. Sure, if you've sold a product placement, it's in your best interest to not show other competing products, but the impression I got is that the movie makers are so fearful of getting sued, they avoid anything that could offend someone or fall under someone's IP rights, regardless of any product placement issues.
Great point. I watched the movie Bullitt the other day and while it was a bit slow-paced by today's standards, I enjoyed examining all of the detail in the street scenes. It was fun just to see how street life had changed since the 60s. All of the "accidentals" would surely have made a modern entertainment lawyer's head explode.
Whether it's usual or not is besides the point. The point is that even if it is usual, it's a colossal waste of effort. It's easy enough to use a phone number that starts with 555 or come up with a fake license plate number, but that's not what's costing all of the wasted effort. It's the liability. Sure, if you sign a contract with Pepsi for product placement in your movie, you'd want to make sure that no Coke products showed up. But, if I'm not selling out by selling product placements, I shouldn't have to worry about whether a Pepsi or Coke product shows up, but that's what they have to do because of the ridiculous intellectual "property" laws we have.
This post by Mike Masnick is based on correspondence with the YouTuber in question, Mark Guertin.
I wouldn't exactly categorize someone sending an e-mail into TechDirt as a "correspondence". Could the post have been more informative if Mike had followed up with Mark to find out more details on the recording? Sure. But maybe Mark didn't answer his follow-up e-mail. Who knows.
Besides, the whole idea of having to get down to the level of the exact nature of the recording -- music, lyrics, composition -- is precisely Mike's point. The layperson doesn't understand these distinctions. Sure, it's not that hard to understand in theory, but in practice, you have plenty of situations where even the lawyers can't agree on how to apply the rules.
BTW, without knowing the details why did you even post this thread?
Because a big part of the problem is that the details in these kinds of situations are hidden. They didn't explain why the soundtrack was blocked; they just blocked it. With the details of the notice/counternotice process being kept in the dark, outside parties have no choice but to guess at the details. I suppose you think that Google and Warner Music must know what's best for us and that we shouldn't question them.
I couldn't agree more that many people view the Segway as a failure in terms of the overblown hype that came out before its unveiling. Nothing short of the second coming could have lived up to that hype. But I think that even Kamen would agree that the Segway has failed to live up to his own expectations. This is what I think Mike is talking about with the invention versus ongoing innovation point.
Yep. Didn't realize that jjmsan was the one who had the "mass transportation" thing wrong.
and then ran with it to create what I considered to be a funny scenario and an outlandishly absurd scenario of what would happen if these things WERE used on the highway
What irks me is that most people thought that scenarios like yours were a natural result of what Kamen was proposing when in fact he was saying no such thing. There was no shortage of hypberbole coming out of the Kamen camp, but to my recollection he never suggested that the Segway would be used for anything more than short distances i.e. longer than what you could conveniently walk and shorter than you'd really need to drive.
On the post: Craigslist's Dumb Lawsuit Against Spam Tools Provider
Re:
OK...and this is relevent how? The question is not whether CL has the right to kick someone off their site for spamming. It's whether they can corrupt the intent of the DMCA and trademark laws to stop a company from selling a tool that can be used by users of CL to distribute spam.
230 protections don't provide coverage for being idiots.
Sometimes, as with free speech, you have to put up with idiots because upholding the overall principle is more important. If you believe that you can't hold a third-party responsible for someone else's behavior, even if they have a more than tangential involvement with that someone, then you have to realize that this will mean that sometimes safe harbors will apply to things you don't like.
For example, if you agree that it's wrong to hold an ISP responsible for its users making copyrighted material available, then you also have to agree that it's wrong to hold Red Trumpet responsible for selling software that its users use to spam.
On the post: Craigslist's Dumb Lawsuit Against Spam Tools Provider
Left hand, right hand
Is it just me or are there too many examples of the legal department going off and doing things which the regular executives should know is obviously bad for the company as a whole? Is "How to Hypnotize your CEO" a standard class in law school?
On the post: Getting Paid Might Kill You?
"A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."
- Gerald Ford
On the post: Did Pencils Make Us Dumber?
This makes it sound like a purely capitalistic model. I think it's more psychological. If it were just about profit, the people who were in control of the old technology would be in the best position to see when their replacement was invented and to jump on the bandwagon. This would be the capitalistic model. But this doesn't happen because people simply like what they know in spite of whether something they don't know could make them more money.
On the post: IBM Wants Patent On Conference Call Laugh Tracks
On the post: Alumnus Sues NYU Over Logo That The School Asked Her To Design
Re: Re: Gray area, maybe, depending...
From a legal standpoint, I think you're probably right. The "everything you do is ours" clauses that they include in the employment contracts of people who are specifically hired to create artworks are probably more of a precaution than a legal requirement.
However, think about this from the perspective of a regular person on the street. Not the "moron in a hurry", but a reasonably intelligent person who doesn't happen to be as aware of legal copyright issues like readers of Techdirt. From a purely moral standpoint, don't you think that what happened to this young woman would strike many as unfair? BTW, I'm not saying that it was unfair, just that the pool of people in a potential jury certainly might and that's why this case is going forward.
On the post: Alumnus Sues NYU Over Logo That The School Asked Her To Design
Re: Gray area, maybe, depending...
"She was paid to pick up dirty towels,"
This is only a guess, but I'd say that since her job description did not include anything about the creation of artwork and -- more importantly -- the standard "everything you do [create] is ours" clause wasn't in her employment contract, they believe they have a case.
If you work in an art department, sure, you're contract is probably going to include that kind of clause. But they probably didn't think that the employment contract of an "equipment room clerk" needed to include this kind of language.
On the post: Understanding The Paywall Mindset In 140 Characters
Re: Inuits in Barbados
The traditional method of collecting the news costs money. No one is arguing that point. The question is how it should be paid for. Yes, a paywall is a model for trying to recoup these costs. However, the point that Mike is making is that it's a model doomed to failure. While a paywall may allow you to make some money in the short term, given the availability of news from other sources, in the long term, you just end up shrinking your audience.
In short, if you build a paywall, it means that eventually you'll be the only person inside the wall.
On the post: Is Assisting With Assisting With Assisting With Potential Copyright Infringement Illegal?
Re: Re: Re: The ISP is partly to blame for the poor decision
Assuming that the court protocol says what you say it says, then I would say that TechDirt and CNet are wrong. Or, in the very least, mischaracterizing the court ruling. Yes, ordering something that has the effect of shutting off service and hiding behind the "but we didn't tell you to shut off service" excuse is an underhanded tactic, but there's still an distinction between the two verdicts. One means the court is dangerously oppresive. The other means it's dangerously ignorant.
On the post: Is Assisting With Assisting With Assisting With Potential Copyright Infringement Illegal?
Re: The ISP is partly to blame for the poor decision
Source? Based on the links provided by TD, it seems clear that the court told the ISP to explicitly stop servicing TPB.
"An executive with Black Internet told Swedish newspaper SvD that the court informed the company that it would either shut off The Pirate Bay or face penalties. The founders of The Pirate Bay were found guilty of copyright violations last April."
From...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10316037-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag =2547-1_3-0-20
I'm not saying you're wrong, just that either you're wrong or TechDirt and CNet are.
On the post: Hollywood Says Due Process Is Too Damn Slow
Re: Re:
You've just restated the argument that "due process is too damn slow". What's fair is to punish the people who are breaking the law, not to go after the people who are providing the people who are breaking the law the platform to do so just because it's convenient.
Besides, no one is "hiding" behind the safe harbor provisions. That's like saying I'm hiding behind the constitution if I want to excercise my right to free speech.
On the post: Hollywood Says Due Process Is Too Damn Slow
Mike, it's a sad commentary on the big media companies, but it seems to me that many of the news stories that you comment on could have a headline almost exactly like this.
- Companies wanting to sue a web site that is protected by safe harbor laws when they should be suing the people who uploaded the content must believe that due process is too slow.
- Lobbying groups that want French judges to only spend five minutes on a case.
- Lobbying groups that want a three strikes rule without a review process.
All of these are cases were companies or lobbying groups want to short-circuit due process because they can't be bothered to go after the people actually breaking the law. Sure, I can sympathize with the companies who have to go after all of the individuals, but this does not extend to breaking one of the fundamental precepts of any just legal system.
On the post: What A Job: Making Sure No Brands Appear In A Movie
Re: Re: Re: It's not like they can't show stuff...
I couldn't agree more. You give up certain rights when you put your IP out in public. Common sense, right?
You'd think that Hollywood as a whole would have enough clout to push back on these silly restrictions. I mean, if they're paying all of these entertainment lawyers anyway to try and prevent lawsuits, why not let them just deal with the lawsuits that come up with the hopes that eventually enough case law would get established that the lawsuits would dry up on their own. Wait, I've just answered my own question. It's a cash cow for the lawyers. Silly me.
On the post: What A Job: Making Sure No Brands Appear In A Movie
Re: It's not like they can't show stuff...
On the post: What A Job: Making Sure No Brands Appear In A Movie
Re: No(More)Stalgia
On the post: What A Job: Making Sure No Brands Appear In A Movie
Re:
Whether it's usual or not is besides the point. The point is that even if it is usual, it's a colossal waste of effort. It's easy enough to use a phone number that starts with 555 or come up with a fake license plate number, but that's not what's costing all of the wasted effort. It's the liability. Sure, if you sign a contract with Pepsi for product placement in your movie, you'd want to make sure that no Coke products showed up. But, if I'm not selling out by selling product placements, I shouldn't have to worry about whether a Pepsi or Coke product shows up, but that's what they have to do because of the ridiculous intellectual "property" laws we have.
On the post: Copyright Conundrum: Was 'Public Domain' Music Silenced On YouTube?
Re:
I wouldn't exactly categorize someone sending an e-mail into TechDirt as a "correspondence". Could the post have been more informative if Mike had followed up with Mark to find out more details on the recording? Sure. But maybe Mark didn't answer his follow-up e-mail. Who knows.
Besides, the whole idea of having to get down to the level of the exact nature of the recording -- music, lyrics, composition -- is precisely Mike's point. The layperson doesn't understand these distinctions. Sure, it's not that hard to understand in theory, but in practice, you have plenty of situations where even the lawyers can't agree on how to apply the rules.
On the post: Copyright Conundrum: Was 'Public Domain' Music Silenced On YouTube?
Because a big part of the problem is that the details in these kinds of situations are hidden. They didn't explain why the soundtrack was blocked; they just blocked it. With the details of the notice/counternotice process being kept in the dark, outside parties have no choice but to guess at the details. I suppose you think that Google and Warner Music must know what's best for us and that we shouldn't question them.
On the post: Why Segway Failed To Reshape The World: Focused On Invention, Rather Than Innovation
Re: Why the fuss?
I couldn't agree more that many people view the Segway as a failure in terms of the overblown hype that came out before its unveiling. Nothing short of the second coming could have lived up to that hype. But I think that even Kamen would agree that the Segway has failed to live up to his own expectations. This is what I think Mike is talking about with the invention versus ongoing innovation point.
On the post: Why Segway Failed To Reshape The World: Focused On Invention, Rather Than Innovation
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yep. Didn't realize that jjmsan was the one who had the "mass transportation" thing wrong.
and then ran with it to create what I considered to be a funny scenario and an outlandishly absurd scenario of what would happen if these things WERE used on the highway
What irks me is that most people thought that scenarios like yours were a natural result of what Kamen was proposing when in fact he was saying no such thing. There was no shortage of hypberbole coming out of the Kamen camp, but to my recollection he never suggested that the Segway would be used for anything more than short distances i.e. longer than what you could conveniently walk and shorter than you'd really need to drive.
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